Some things you’ll need to be aware of when you come to Orlando in the Fall.
- The Magic Express (the shuttle from the airport to Coronado Springs) leaves from Terminal A. Since many of you will have to pick up baggage from Terminal B, you’ll need to go BACK to terminal A before looking for ground transport. Make SURE you get on a bus marked with Disney.
- Wear walking shoes. The rooms are scattered in buildings across a huge campus around a lake. My room is about a mile from the lobby.
- There are two restaurants here. There’s something to dislike about each of them. I’ve been told — several times — that Downtown Disney is only 10 minutes away by Magic Express.
- Internet access is not wireless in the rooms. It costs $10/day. There are multiple drops in the rooms.
This is going to be a watershed year for the conference.
July 23rd, 2005 at 9:26 am
Summer Leadership Retreat and the Overlay
For those of you who are relatively new, Don Little and Nate Lowell have a prototype of The Overlay running. There is some testing of it this week at the AECT Summer Leadership Retreat, as you can see from the…
July 23rd, 2005 at 5:54 pm
Nate,
Did you notice, by chance if there are any cheap(er) motel/hotels near the conference hotel? Being a grad student, I was wondering if there were cheaper alternatives to the conf. hotel for this October …
July 24th, 2005 at 6:19 am
Donal and I have been looking but there do not seem to be alternatives. The Coronado is IN the Disney property and there are busses that link all the Disney hotels. Finding a room that’s cheaper, but that doesn’t require a 10-20 minute bus ride each time you want to get to the conference doesn’t seem likely.
The best choice is find a roomie. The room rate is $129+tax (about 15%) for the first two people. Add another person for $15 more. For two people that works out to about $70/night per person for 2 in a room.
It’s the food that’ll kill ya. There are only two restaurants on the property. One that’s cheap and not very good. One that’s passable and pretty expensive ($30+) per meal.
I’ve got some processing to do and I’ll make an “attendence strategy” post later in the week when I get home.
NL
July 25th, 2005 at 10:24 am
just for the record, the other restaurant isn’t cheap except in comparison to the first one. there are refrigerators in the rooms but bring your own jar; a pbj sandwich is $4.99 at the
July 25th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
Nortel is going to providing the wireless Internet access for the conference and they are saying that they are planning on blanketing the conference meeting room with access with speeds in the 104MBS range. There is every indication that they know what they are doing in this area.
In relationship to dining and food, it would be fairly easy for four people to share a cab and go to the row of restaurants on 192 and the food shopping that is in the same area. It is less that four miles. 192 is an exit off of I-4.
July 25th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Thanks, Ken! That’s GREAT information.
I didn’t see any cab stands at the hotel, but I confess, I wasn’t looking.